


430. the luxury of loneliness

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [293]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Character Swap, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10671093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Anonymous asked: Idk if u ever done but assassin sarah and proclone helena?





	430. the luxury of loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: blood, possibly self-harm]
> 
> ...for authorial ease, Sarah is British here. I didn't want to spend a few hundred words sorting out how she and Helena got separated and how Sarah ended up as an assassin, but I'm sure there's a real good reason for it! Ask me later.

The apartment smells like money, which means: perfume, lotion, leather, things Sarah wants but can’t get. It’s easy to find the place in her chest that’s angry at the others, feed it the light shining on that metal sculpture in the corner until it’s roaring and snarling and furious.

(It makes it easier to kill the others, when she’s furious.)

(If she isn’t furious, it’s—)

(It’s not that it’s difficult, because she has to kill them, but it’s—)

Her fingers fiddle with the switchblade in her pocket. She steps light. It’s dark, the only light the city coming in through the window, and so the latest one must be asleep. That’s for the best, probably. Easier to kill something when it’s sleeping, when it isn’t looking at you. Sarah doesn’t vomit anymore, but every time one of them _looks_ at her—

Alright. Doesn’t matter. Anyways. She pads through the apartment until she finds the bedroom and the woman who’s sleeping with her blonde hair fanning over the pillowcase. She sleeps on her side. Sarah hates that she knows how many of the others sleep on their sides, and how some of them sleep on their backs, and how none of them sleep with one arm extending across the bed. Reaching for something. This is the only one that’s done that. Her fingernails are painted with some metallic color that bites at the moonlight coming through the window.

Sarah is good at this, is the problem, is the solution, is the thing. Sarah is quick and Sarah is quiet and Sarah moves in and out of places like a shadow, she can’t get caught.

Which means it doesn’t make _sense_ when the woman in the bed sits up, sudden, and stares at her. Eyes wide. Sarah didn’t make a sound, she knows she didn’t, and that wasn’t a nightmare-waking. That’s the way you wake up when you hear a footstep on the floorboard – but Sarah didn’t _step_.

“Hello,” says the woman in the bed, voice soft. “My name is Helena. What’s your name?” She tilts her head to the side, says in a voice that’s even quieter: “I don’t know you.”

Sarah presses her thumb into the edge of the blade in her pocket. “Family,” she says, a flat mask of teeth that could be a grin. If you wanted a grin. If you were looking for one.

Helena’s eyes go even wider. “You’re her, aren’t you,” she says. “Aldous’ white whale.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Sarah says, stepping closer. “We’re sisters, yeah?”

“You’re the one who’s been killing the other subjects,” Helena says, and Sarah stops. It would take her seconds to leap onto the bed and shove her knife into Helena’s neck and _pull_ —

(Helena is awake)

“Subjects,” Sarah says, voice rough.

“Who _are_ you,” Helena says. “Why don’t we know you. Why don’t _I_ know you. Where did you go? Who left you?”

“Shut up,” Sarah says. She takes another step closer. Everything smells like money and sleep and softness and when Sarah pushes that knife down it’s all going to be ruined. She’s going to break it. She always breaks things, that’s her job, that’s the point of her.

“Just tell me your name,” Helena says coaxingly. “That’s all.”

“If you think I’m gonna kill you,” Sarah says, “why’re you just sitting there, huh?” It’s supposed to be a growl, a calm sound, a predator stalking. She just sounds scared. Sarah doesn’t vomit anymore but she might, now. When it’s done. She might vomit. Maybe she’ll even cry.

“I don’t think you’re going to kill me,” Helena says, and she sounds so certain of it. Sarah is digging her thumb so hard into the edge of her switchblade that it’s bleeding, staining the pocket of her jacket.

“Yeah?” she says. “Yeah?” Her voice is too loud, seesawing. Hates it, she hates it. She’s standing too close. Helena is wearing a slip, the strap loose on her shoulderblade. Everything about her is wrinkled from sleep. She should have stayed asleep. Sarah didn’t make a noise, how did Helena know she was there, how did she know that Sarah was standing in the door.

“I’m going to,” she says, because she’s standing too close. “Nothing you can do. That make you scared? Huh? You scared?”

“No,” Helena says, eyes wide as a doe’s and just as trusting. Sarah makes a disgusted sound and puts her knife against Helena’s throat.

“Who did this to you,” Helena says.

“Shut up,” Sarah says.

“I can help,” Helena says. “My people, we can help you. There could be a place for you here. They made a place for me, you know. I was an orphan, and they made a place for me.”

“ _Stop_ ,” Sarah says. Her fingers slip on the knife blade, slippery from the coppertang of her own blood. The others don’t _do_ this, they never make promises. They beg. They cry. They scream. They don’t sit there unmoving and wait for Sarah to say _yes, alright, I’m ready to come home._

“You must be lonely,” Helena whispers. “I’m lonely too.”

Sarah presses the knife down – just enough to break skin, so she’s not the only one bleeding. Helena sucks in air between her teeth when she presses down and that’s good, that’s what Sarah wanted, Sarah just wanted Helena to be afraid of her, that’s what she wanted from Helena. That. She wanted fear. Helena’s just like all the others, terrified and animal. It’s easier, now that any sort of promise is gone. Sarah couldn’t have had it anyways; she isn’t built for home, she’s built to break and run and never have to look back at what she’s torn apart.

“I’m not lonely,” she says. “And you’re not gonna be either, soon.” But she doesn’t press down. She keeps on not pressing down, even though Helena’s throat would split just like anyone else’s throat.

“Do it,” Helena whispers, and – and – _and_ – she tips her neck back and bares her throat. Sarah lets out a noise that she didn’t mean to make, pulls the knife away, stumbles back a few steps.

“What is _wrong_ with you,” she says, words tumbling out of her mouth. Her thumb is full-on bleeding, now, so when she licks the blood off her fingerprint more blood replaces it. She’s going to start dripping on the carpet, soon. After – she can rip up a sheet or something, make a bandage. Wouldn’t do to drip on the way out.

“You care,” Helena breathes. “Or you would have done it.” There’s a smile on her mouth, like this is a victory for her. Red smile cut into her throat, but it’s shallow. She doesn’t even seem to notice the blood trickling down her neck.

“I don’t,” Sarah says. The words hang in the air, fragile and young. There’s a _please_ somewhere in there, tucked between the syllables, Sarah doesn’t know where. _Please_. If Sarah could find it, she could cut it out.

“You’re bleeding,” Helena says.

“So’re you.”

“I can get you a bandage,” Helena says. She starts standing up and Sarah’s arm unfolds, fast; the knife is pointed towards Helena’s heart before Helena can move out of an awkward crouch. “Alright,” she says, hands splayed. “You can get one yourself, they’re in the bathroom cabinet. The door is behind you. The cabinet on the right, near the back.”

“If you move I’ll kill you,” Sarah says, keeping the knife pointed in Helena’s direction. “Swear I’ll do it.”

“I know,” Helena says. Sarah orbits around the knife and backs into the bathroom. She can’t see shit in the dark; she fumbles for the door of a cabinet, rummages through products more expensive than anything she’s ever owned. The box of Band-Aids is incongruous. She can’t put one on without dropping the knife.

“I’m not going to move,” Helena says.

“Shut up,” Sarah says, and she lets out a shaky breath, and she puts down the knife. She sits down next to it, peels open the Band-Aid with her teeth, and wraps it around her thumb. The cut bleeds through right away, but at least the Band-Aid is soaking it up better.

“You don’t have to go so quickly,” Helena says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I want this to be done,” Sarah says, her voice stripped raw. “I want _you_ to be done, alright, I just – want this whole awful night to be over, I want this to never have happened, I wish you’d never woken up. I still don’t – I don’t even know how you woke up.” She doesn’t look at Helena at all during this; she’s preoccupied wiping blood off her switchblade with the hem of her shirt.

“I could feel it,” Helena says. “You. In the dark.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“You were frightened,” Helena says, “so I woke up.”

“I don’t buy it,” Sarah says, and she finally looks up. Then she looks down again. She hates the expression on Helena’s face, but she doesn’t hate it in a way that makes Helena easier to kill. She hates it in a way that makes her tired. She’s so tired. Feels like she’s always been tired, maybe.

“Yes you do,” Helena says. “You know I’m telling the truth, about all of this. That you don’t have to be what they made you. You can stay. It’s my job to look after all of you, did you know?”

(All of you.)

(Sarah’s heart twists sour and it’s probably because of all the others, the ones she’s killed, that’s why.)

“I can’t,” she says, pressing a finger into the cut on her thumb over and over like it’ll make her feel better. It doesn’t, but that’s obvious. She focuses on it anyways. The pain comes and goes like a stoplight in the fog.

“You can,” Helena says, and her voice is too close, and when Sarah looks up she’s _right there_ and her hand is against Sarah’s face, fingertips light on her cheek, and: when is the last time someone touched Sarah. Four cities ago, in the dark, one of the others lashing out and backhanding her across the face. Bruise healed. This feels like it won’t.

“Stop,” Sarah says.

“Shh,” Helena says. Crouching down on the floor she looks – dainty, almost, weird silvery colors in the citylights.

“You’re so stupid,” Sarah says. “I don’t know why you want to die.”

“I trust you,” Helena says.

“You’re so stupid,” Sarah says again. “Can you—” She stops. Her face is tilted into Helena’s hand and she hates it. She needs to go, she needs to shove that knife so deep in Helena’s belly that it becomes the entirety of her and she can become something understandable. Like meat.

“Let us take care of you,” Helena says. “Let me take care of you.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Sarah says helplessly. “You’re gonna go away, like all the others did. They all leave. It’s my fault, they begged me and I did it anyways and then they were _gone_.” She’s crying. Helena watches her, eyes unreadable. Her hand falls away. Sarah misses it and that makes anger shudder through her, makes her wipe tears from her face with the back of her wrist and suck it all back in.

“Stay here,” Helena says. “Stay with me.”

“I,” Sarah says, because she can’t say _yes_ , because the word _yes_ is unforgivable but anything less than that, maybe, maybe.

Helena stands up and Sarah misses her. Sarah stands up and she’s still holding the knife and she is forgivable. She can be forgiven, for all of this. Helena’s hand in the small of her back, pushing her towards Helena’s bed, Sarah can be forgiven for that. Pulling off her boots, getting into the empty side of the bed: those are all sins that can be forgiven, as long as she keeps holding the knife.

Helena lies down next to her. Her fingernails are gold. That’s the color Sarah couldn’t see before: gold.

“What’s your name,” Helena says, eyes-hair-nails all shining the dark. Sarah grips her knife a little tighter, and tells her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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